Southern Chapter Forum Meetings

[pineywoods]

Sorry you missed it all. went great, fabulous, lots of traded ideas, a few war stories. Nobody wanted to leave, most didn't till late in the day. First to arrive was wwsjr, jerry-m was the only one who got sorta lost (and he had a gps). I showed all my junkstuff from a home-made stump grinder to a still under development remote console for woodmizers. We all moved up the road to arlcon's place after lunch (bbq brisket, beans and potato salad) and spent a while going over his kiln. He had loaded it up with a pile of wet cypress lumber yesterday and it was making nearly 2 gallons of water per day. Radar67 was doing most of the picture-taking, so y'all will have to wait till he gets back to Miss. for pics.

Thanks to Stew for getting the ball rolling.

[Radar67]

Well, we made it back to MS safe, DonK is on the road to Alabama, should arrive by midnight.

I'll get the pictures up tomorrow when I have more time to optimize them.

It was a very informative trip and we could not have asked for a better host. Those that couldn't make it sure missed a great day. I'll also go into more detail of what we learned from this trip.

Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and several new friends were made. Another forum meeting that was as expected, fully of fun and fellowship with some great people.

[Don K]

Got home a little after eleven, I think somebody stretched the road out longer while I wasn't looking.    I gotta start rounding up the parts for a pineywoods tractor winch.

[wwsjr]

I got home about 10:15 Lots of Sat nite traffic all the way home. Great meeting, good sharing of info about solar kiln, sawing, marketing, and numerous other subjects. In compliance with Forum rules, I have to mention the food was delicious, thanks Pineywoods. I have a few pictures, will wait for Stew to post, he was designated as the official photographer. Good to meet new friends and see some of the guys I had met before. Pineywoods, thanks for being a great host, looking forward to the next meeting.

[beenthere]

No pics?? we like pics.....

[Radar67]

The pics are coming...there is a little thing called work in the way right now though. 

[Radar67]

When we got to Pineywoods' place, wwsjr was already there, along with a couple of others. We waited around for a few minutes and Jerry-M pulled in. We all moved over to the first kiln to have a look see.

Here is Pineywoods and Jerry-M discussing some of the finer points of kilns.


This is the Southern facing side of Pineywoods' kiln. The Lexan (uv resistant) was the most expensive part of the kiln.


Here is the group picture, less one. From L-R Don K, correct me here Pineywoods...Bill?, Pineywoods, wwsjr, Jerry-M, Pinenut, Radar67.


The morning was very overcast and foggy early and the kiln was still holding an 80 degree temp. (the sun had not been out at all)


This is one of the two box fans to circulate air. They have to be set on low speed, remove the front and back plastic grates or they melt. Piney assures us they will last for 2 weeks or 2 years or somewhere in between. 


With the exception of the insulation, this is probably the most important part of the kiln, the metal collector. It has to be painted flat black on the sun facing side and placed on the under-surface of the rafters.


I'll post more later......

[Radar67]

Another important piece of the kiln was the duhumidifier...


We move on to some of Pineywoods' other interests. He is quite the tinkerer..

He has a home made stump grinder


A baby dozer, which by the way was safe from myself and DonK since it was way smaller than the one we got stuck 


He was currently working on a remote control unit for his Woodmizer (remote up/down and forward/reverse...


There are more pictures of the control unit in my gallery. He built the board from a kit, which can be purchased already assembled.

His wife bought him a present, a 1930 Model A Ford

More pictures in my gallery.

He also has a home built concrete mixer...


More soon.

[Radar67]

Our next stop was lunch, BBQ brisket, baked beans, potato salad, and light bread. That was the most tender brisket I ever put in my mouth, boy was it goooodddddd.


It was actually a little quiet during lunch...


After lunch, we moved down the road to another kiln Pineywoods built for Arlcon

That is him on the left.

As you can see in the previous picture, the sun peeked out for a little while latter in the afternoon. This kiln was holding a little more heat.

It had a fresh load of cypress drying. The dehumidifier was removing about 2 gallons of water per day.

We just had to look over the WM and operation


More coming....

[Radar67]

We had to have a "real" hat for this picture...

Cypress at 20 inches wide.

A couple of cants...


And a size reference


Oh. Pineywoods also had a bicycle speedometer on his mill. Said the blade was running 50 mph, that works out to 264,000 feet per hour, or, 4400 feet per minute, or a little over 73 feet per second.   


There are several other pictures in my gallery.

Overall we had a very nice day learning about solar kilns, and looking over Wayne's inventions. Oh, the kilns were sealed with good quality rubberized silicon caulking, anything else will melt away and damage the Lexan.

Now, let's hear from some of the other attendees.

[pigman]

I was not an attendee. Great pictures and thank you for taking the time to post them. When I saw one of the pictures in your gallery I thought that someone was sawing real large logs with a funny looking bark, but when I saw the picture full size I realized that it was of the dust blower connection to the WM.

[Radar67]

We didn't saw any logs this trip, but the pin oak on the mill was at least 30".

That dust chute was where a blade shot out.

[LOGDOG]

Let's see ... I'd like the dozer, model A, a plate of that bbq, one of those kilns and some of that 20" wide cypress. SWEET!

LOGDOG

[jerry-m]

All I got to say is, you that missed this chance to meet other forum members and get to pick their brains, well don't ever do it again This was just a super opportunity that I am so thankful I did not miss

Now I got to get busy and build one of these solar kilns

A very special Thanks to Stew and Wayne for getting this togather,


Jerry

[Furby]

Hey Jerry, if ya think that little group was fun.............
Try "THE" piggy roast sometime!

[jerry-m]

Yeah Furby,  I have always wanted to do the piggy roast from the very first 0ne, But old cars and gas prices, motel bills, etc have kept me away... But I read all about them and that helps some...

Maybe some day,  Jerry

[scsmith42]

WOW - BBQ, kilns, sawmills, BBQ, bulldozers, old cars, BBQ, and lots of cool mechanical stuff, and some great FF members - this event looks like it was the complete package!

Sorry that I missed it.

Steve / Furby - sorry that I didn't log in to this thread earlier - I sure would have been proud to have flown up and picked y'all up!  Of course, it would have cost y'all a trip to the Rox so we could "tank up" before heading south...

We could have detoured by Norm and Patty's on the way back to taste some of those home-made egg noodles too...  Not sure that there would be much room after looking at the photo's of that brisket though!

Bummer - another opportunity lost...  ....   

I did have some fun this weekend though - we're making live-edge boards from some 28' - 44' logs to use as trim and siding on an old farmhouse that I'm remodeling.  Figured that it would be somewhat unique and different to use single boards for all of the trim and siding.  I can kiln-dry up to 44' long, so we don't have to sacrifice the drying for the length.

Scott

[WDH]

I love the landscaping around Pineywood's kiln .

[Radar67]

I noticed that Danny, but didn't think of it as "landscaping" 

Some other things I failed to mention...

When Pineywoods opened his kiln for us, the aroma of red cedar permeated the air. He had a nice batch of cedar drying. Arlcon had a load of fresh cypress drying in his. They told us that both loads would take about 2 - 3 weeks to dry down to 10%.

We also discussed drying hardwood and the concensus was it had to be air dried down to at least 30% before going into the kiln to prevent degrade.

Both used standard batt insulation in the walls of the kilns. Arlcon had his walls covered with black asphalt sheathing as well. One good note to mention is that as the sun goes down and the temps start dropping, condensation would start forming on the underside of the Lexan and run down to the exterior walls. I wonder if a length of rain gutter would be feasible to prevent the condesate from dripping onto the exterior siding? I think it would help the siding to last longer.

The digital thermometer pictured took its readings from the top of the kiln (the higher temp) and the bottom of the kiln. Someone mentioned using a thermocoupler to take readings from the interior of the lumber stack. Would you ellaborate more on that?

The fans were ran constantly, else they would burn up from the high heat. Neither kiln had a vent, it wasn't needed. The dehumidifiers also ran constantly with a hose to the outside. Arlcon had a pot for his to drain into so he could track the water output each day.

Overall, I gained a good bit of info on solar kilns and look forward to getting one operational. I'll be working up a material list for everyone in the next week or so. Hopefully, we can get a work day scheduled for someone in the near future.

Also, LJMathis asked about getting a workshop for Timber Framing, or general woodworking together. He thought it would be good for our cooler months, if we could get a warm place to have it. What does everyone think?

[pineywoods]

I'd like to add a few comments concerning the temperature in the kiln. The picture stew posted of the thermometer in arlcon's kiln show a temp of 114F in the top and 93F where the air exits from the stack. The difference in the two is due to water evaporating in the stack. When water evaporates, it cools the air. When the lumber gets down around 6 percent, these two temps will be almost the same. Makes a pretty good moisture meter.The other point is this. When that pic was taken, the outside temp was 78F under a HEAVY overcast. Sunshine is not what creates the heat, it's infrared radiation which will penetrate clouds. Overall, these two kilns have performed quite well, but we did make a couple of mistakes they aren't big enough   Probably gonna build arlcon a bigger one, like 28 ft.